


a spark of that immortal fire

by ExorcisingEmily



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety, Kissing, M/M, Post Episode: S01e07, Romance, figure skating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 09:12:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8618422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExorcisingEmily/pseuds/ExorcisingEmily
Summary: Victor kissed him.They haven't talked about it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Lord Byron. Be gentle, this is my first Yuri on Ice fic, as I tried to get a feel for the characters. 
> 
> Thank you to @angel_kink for the beta, and even more for roping me into this fandom.

_He is thinking of snow, how it blows_

_across the gray pond scribbled with skate tracks,_

_of the small blaze on its shore, and the boys_

_in black coats who skate hand-in-hand_

_round and round, building up speed_

_until the leader cracks that whip_

_of mittens and arms, and it jerks around_

_fast, flinging off the last boy._

_He’d be that one—flung like a spark_

_trailing only his scarf._

\- Julia Kasdorf, “A Family History”

 

Victor kissed him.

They haven’t talked about it.

Victor smiles and flirts his way through Yuri’s network interviews, charming the viewing audience on his behalf with an arm slung around Yuri’s shoulders and an irrepressible grin tugging the corners of his lips… but they don’t mention it. The reporters are more than happy to allow Victor to steal the spotlight, to speak for his skater—Victor sells papers, Victor gathers viewers. No one will notice if Yuri is quieter than usual, because Victor is animated and boisterous enough for the both of them and was born for that spotlight.

Morooka is there too, waiting for his turn to interview, and Yuri can feel the announcer’s eyes on him. He knows Yuri better than the network people who never had cause to notice him, knows the skating world better than local newscasters who are there from obligation, and he knows Victor’s reputation perfectly. Yuri can see the question sitting on the tip of his tongue, gathering as his shoulders square, intent clear in every line of him like a skater preparing to throw himself wholly into a jump.

Victor’s expression never slips as he turns to Morooka’s microphone, the Russian’s grin wide and proud, doubtless aware of the curiosity but fearless as always. Victor never slips, never falls, no matter what he’s thrown himself into--but Yuri feels as if the ground is unsteady beneath him, over-rotated, his balance slipping, every moment a poor mimicry of Victor’s flawless performance.

Unseen by the cameras as he’s tucked beneath his coach’s arm, Yuri’s hand clutches the back of Victor’s coat in a tight fist, the fabric bunching in his fingers as he tenses, chin dropping to his chest as he braces himself for impact.

The world is going to hear what Victor will say, before Yuri knows for himself what this _means_.

It’s only when the question doesn’t come that Yuri looks up. Blue eyes stare at him, narrowed in consideration, and it takes a moment longer for Yuri to notice that Victor has a hand up between him and Morooka, holding him off from speaking for the moment. Victor paused the interview, took stock of Yuri, and saw right through him. Embarrassed, Yuri releases Victor’s coat from his grip and steps back. He can feel himself flushing in mortification.

In a blink, Victor smiles again, wider and brighter, and turns to the microphones shoved out at them, stepping subtly in front of Yuri to capture their attention again. “Now that Yuri can do a quadruple flip, he’ll definitely win at the Rostlecom Cup and advance to the Grand Prix Final. I’m looking forward to going to Russia as his coach.”

In his way, Victor was protecting him. He wasn’t taking the spotlight, he was providing a distraction to give Yuri a moment to catch his breath, and it’s enough to make Yuri smile to himself as he’s tugged away with Victor’s excuses of needing to catch a plane to Moscow. But they still don’t talk about it as they change into travelling clothes, skaters and coaches approaching as they go, a gauntlet of people between them and the exit and the conversation they need to have. His phone buzzes in a burst of unanswered texts, his family and friends trying to reach him, but he doesn’t have answers for them yet and powers off as they make their way back out of the rink.

A dime-a-dozen skater before this season, Yuri has never had this much demand for his attention and time before. He’s idolized Victor for his talent so long, he didn’t realize that being stopped for autographs and congratulations and selfies could be every bit as exhausting as their sport. Now that the endorphin rush of a successful performance is wearing off, the lack of sleep is catching up with him. He feels half-drunk with exhaustion, and he puts himself in Victor’s hands, letting him take the lead while trailing behind weighed down like a pack mule by the bags and bags they seem to have between them (Victor is incapable of packing light).

It seems like the right time to ask has passed, and by the time they get to the plane Yuri is dead on his feet. He barely registers Victor tucking the airplane blanket around them both, before he finds himself with Victor’s weight against his side.

Four hours into the eight and a half hour flight from Beijing to Moscow he’s awake, jostled by turbulence and overheated by the heat of Victor’s body tucked against him, by the blanket and the layers of clothing that had been comfortable in Beijing’s winter but is now bulky and ridiculous in the airplane. But Victor is snoring softly, an arm tucked around Yuri’s waist holding him like an overstuffed teddy bear, his head nestled against Yuri’s neck where he’s flung himself half out of his chair and across the arm rest into Yuri’s, and every breath Yuri takes stirs Victor’s white-blonde hair.

Yuri can’t stand the idea of waking him, even when the flight attendant comes by offering drinks and food, even when the elderly Russian woman on the aisle nearest them shoots them critical looks for Victor’s display of unconscious affection whenever she glances up from her book.

Victor purchased the plane tickets, a red-eye flight just after they would get off the ice. Was he that desperate to return to Russia? They have a week until the next competition, there was no reason to leave China so quickly.

By the time they land, Yuri is sliding into depression, he desperately needs to use the toilet, he’s exhausted again from not sleeping long enough, starving, cramped from being a human body pillow, he’s sweating through his layers, and still can’t be resentful when Victor blinks awake slowly from his eight hours and is indecently chipper about everything.

So naturally, Victor dumps all of their luggage into the car waiting for them, and drives them straight to a rink rather than a place to rest, popping out of the car as soon as they’ve stopped to dig into his carry-on.

“Victor, it’s two in the morning…”

“Yes, it’s perfect.” Victor agrees, seemingly sadistically happy.

“It will be locked…” Before the objection is even out, he hears the jingle of the keys Victor triumphantly holds aloft. “…But you have keys.”

“Since I was fifteen,” Victor affirms cheerfully. “Here and St. Petersburg. The owners love me.” Victor shoulders his duffle bag, dumping Yuri’s into his arms and taking off in a long-legged stride towards the building. It takes trotting to catch up with his coach, reaching out to grab Victor’s arm and stop him. Instead, Victor spins in his grip, interrupting Yuri before he can attempt to reason with him. “You’re tired. You had eight hours to rest but haven’t slept or eaten. You’re uncomfortable and distracted…”

“ _Yes_.” Yuri’s relief that Victor understands is cut short immediately.

“Which is _exactly_ how you felt before your performance, and exactly why we are going now.” Victor’s grin blossoms, he pats Yuri on the shoulder and moves past him to unlock the door and hold it open with a flourish, thrilled with his own genius. “An hour, and then I promise I will let you rest. I keep an apartment not far from here, it will be more comfortable than a hotel, and I can show you Moscow as you showed me Hasetsue. But first, we practice. Come. Skate with me.”

It’s the _with me_ that finally spurs Yuri into following, as much as the possibility of being stranded in an unfamiliar city at night; the promise of Victor tying on his own skates is always an incentive, and ultimately Victor knows the toll skating has on the human body as well as anyone. If he thought this would truly harm Yuri, he would not insist.

Victor slaps the lights on in the locker room, practically humming to himself as he begins stripping off his travel clothes the moment he’s dropped the bag. There’s nothing deliberately sensual about the motions, tugging his shirt over his head, stepping out of his jeans, and of course Yuri has seen Victor in far less than his briefs more than once at the hot springs. Nevertheless, he only leaps into action once Victor’s head pops through the neck of the dark t-shirt he favors for practice, brow arching and lips curling up on one side in a knowing smirk. “Unless you are planning to do quads in those puffy layers _, kotyonok,_ you should get changed.”

Plucking his skates out of the bag, Victor laughs quietly to himself at Yuri’s questioning look at the unfamiliar Russian phrase as he leaves the locker room. “Change. Stretch. I’ll meet you on the ice. The hour doesn’t begin until we’re practicing.”

By the time Yuri has stripped out of his layers, used the restroom, changed into his warm-up attire and tied on his skates, it’s easy to find Victor by the music drifting through the empty rink, and the bright lights at the end of the darkened hall. Victor’s phone is plugged into a speaker, the music slow and dark, half music-box lullaby and half the suggestive drag of a violin. Unlike when he’s changing, there is something _very_ deliberately sexual about Victor on the ice, every flex and shift of muscle tantalizing.

Victor gives himself over to the music when he’s on the ice, immersed in the story he’s telling in the way Yurio has not yet picked up, but that Yuri has attempted to emulate since childhood. Where Christophe’s performances are overtly sexual, they seem crude next to Victor’s; Christophe is sex on ice, but Victor is a seduction. In all his years of watching Victor, this performance is new. To the tempo of the music, his body bends back in a sinuous bow, a catch-foot layback spin, fingertips trailing down his lips to his chest, resting against his heart for a moment before he pulls himself upright into a Biellman. This isn't the unformed bits and pieces that would become Eros and Agape that Yurio watched with him in the Ice Castle... this is a full performance, a gold medal performance with the way Victor skates it, complete with music and dance.

“You choreographed this for yourself, for this season.” It’s half question, and half understanding, but the interruption pulls Victor out of his performance, and he slows the spin, dropping his other foot in time to be facing Yuri. A slow blink and he’s back, smiling as he glides his way across the ice, his tone teasing as he ignores the question in Yuri’s words, plucking Yuri’s glasses off and setting them on the wall beside his skate guards.

“You took too long. You’re going to be tired tomorrow. But, I promised an hour tonight. Come.”

“…No, Victor, you had your entire season prepared already but you…” Victor’s finger presses to his lips, silencing Yuri as Victor stops tugging once they reach center ice, but doesn’t release his grip on Yuri’s wrist. They’re chest to chest in a lazy spin, Victor’s blue eyes a sharp challenge, his grin unfaltering as he tugs Yuri in closer.

“So many questions! I’ll let you ask them. But we’re going to make a game of this. I will skate an element, then join you back here. If you copy it as I have, you will have right to an answer. If you do not, I owe you no reply. Now, ask.” Victor pushes himself back from Yuri, still clasping his wrists as he shifts his weight to spin them faster, and Yuri shifts with him to keep them balanced, eyes narrowing in consideration as he locks eyes with the Russian skater.

Victor isn’t just making it a game. He’s making it a _challenge_ , playing to Yuri’s competitive streak.  Despite the exhaustion, Yuri finds himself swept into it, asking the immediate question rather than the one they both know has been hanging over them. “If you had a set planned for this year, why did you retire?”

Victor laughs, tossing his head back, hair silver under the light, but he nods agreement to the question and releases Yuri’s hands, skating backwards half a pace to grin at him.

“Too easy, Yuri! But it will work to start.” Throwing his arms out gracefully, Victor pushes off to build momentum, eyes locked on Yuri, daring him to look away as Victor seamlessly slides into a long backwards glide in a wide arc, holding the back edge to the corner before toe-picking into a flawless triple lutz. Yuri’s eyes narrow as he counts rotations, then follows Victor’s progress as he speeds across the ice, clasping Yuri’s wrist, his speed spinning them counter clockwise until they settle with positions reversed. “Now you.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t choose a quad.” Yuri admits as he pushes backwards, leaving Victor behind, mirroring the element carefully.

“I’m surprised you didn’t choose the harder question first.” Victor counters, the reply teasing and whipcrack quick as Yuri builds speed. “And you just spent nine hours on a plane after a competition. I’m not entirely heartless, Yuri. Mind your leg. If you mule-kick, I will not be awarding points.”

The warning settles Yuri rather than riles him, a reminder that this is still Victor he’s facing off against, that for whatever is happening between them now he’s still the same irreverent man who accosted him Hasetsue to be his coach. With a breath in, Yuri kicks off, and he only breathes again when his skate hits the ice, arms extended gracefully.

Victor’s grin is proud as Yuri makes his way back across the ice to him, but his head is tilted critically. “Your angle was off from mine, but you landed it and I am in a giving mood.”

When Yuri goes to clasp wrists, following Victor’s lead, Victor hooks elbows with him instead, sending them in a lazy spiral again, locked together facing opposite directions but turned in towards each other as he answers the question, the music a bittersweet soundtrack lilting through the empty rink, echoing over the ice. “It was another sad love story. Selene, the moon goddess, falls in love with the mortal Endymion and strives to make him immortal while watching him slowly die, pleading with the gods to save him, until instead he falls into an eternal ageless sleep. It was about love, tragedy, aging… Yakov called it morbid and self-indulgent and demanded I rework it, and he was not wrong. My final bow was going to be _uninspired_.”

Victor ends there, as if it explains everything, and it does in its way. Victor was always as much artist as athlete, and for his final season anything less than perfection would have been a loss. This performance could have easily cemented him a final season of golds, but to Victor it felt like more of the same. How could he outdo himself, when he'd already done it all? It explains everything except one thing.

“Why me?”

Victor has the nerve to roll his eyes as he kicks off, pulling his arm away and taking off across the ice, building speed to arabesque into a double axel, springing easily into a quad Salchow following the rotation, making it look effortless in a way Yuri knows it isn't.

“That answer called for a quad combo?”

“Consider it the penalty for a silly question.” Victor flourishes his arm in invitation for Yuri to duplicate the move, and he feels the ache of regret that they don't come together at center ice first.

It may seem a stupid question to Victor, but Yuri doesn't _understand_ him. Yurio is the better skater, the clear choice for protege. He saw them in the hall after the Grand Prix, how neatly Victor fell into teaching and critiquing the boy. Yurio is a prodigy with his entire skating career ahead of him--Yuri has two or three years at best left in him of skating on the competitive level before his body gives out on him, and only that long because Victor took pity on him. Victor moved to a different country to coach him overnight, what's to keep him from moving back just as impulsively?

When he misjudges the speed going into the jump, the jolt of pain through his shoulder as he relaxes his muscles to take the fall reinforces everything he knows about himself, everything that makes Victor’s choice a ridiculous waste of his talent. He can feel every bruise on his body, the strain in his muscles, the force of the impact resonating through him.

The Russian watches him carefully from center ice again, stretching out a hand to invite him in as Yuri pushes himself back to his feet stubbornly and joins him, surprised when he's pulled in close, hands linking together between their chests as Victor sets them into a spin. His hands are warm against Yuri’s ice-chilled fingers, the thin skin of gloves between them doing nothing to conceal the heat of him. Victor's admonishment is surprisingly gentle. “You're overthinking. This is your problem, Yuri, not ability.”

He _knows_ that. Opening his mouth to say as much, needled by the failure and this ill timed training and the pain of the fall and his lack of sleep, Yuri is shocked to silence by the sudden press of lips against his.

Everything stops except the spin of the world around them, the slow rotation of their blades on the ice as they’re locked in orbit with each other. He can't hear the music, the blast of the air conditioner, anything but the pounding of his heartbeat, a frenetic drumbeat of surprise.

The first time was quick, over before they hit the ice as Victor tucked an arm behind his head to pillow him in the unexpected fall. This time, his lips were parted to speak, and Victor takes advantage of it, teeth dragging over Yuri’s lower lip, capturing it gently, letting Victor tease it momentarily with a flick of his tongue.

He still stops before Yuri’s mind can catch up to the reality of what is happening, before it can realize this isn't some fantasy formed from too many years of wishing and idolizing. Before he can really kiss _back_. Breath puffs across Yuri’s skin as Victor moves them cheek to cheek, accent thick as he murmurs the words into Yuri’s ear.

“Stop thinking and jump, _lyubov moya._ Try again.” Victor pushes himself away, rather than shoving Yuri back, and for a moment Yuri can't help but stare: Victor’s lips are soft and wet from the kiss, his hair tousled from the spin, eyes so strikingly blue as he watches Yuri from an arms length away. He doesn't know the meaning of the Russian words, but the fondness in them is clear. “Jump. Then you can ask whatever you need to.”

Spurred on by Victor flicking a hand in invitation to move, Yuri nods once, a slight dip of his chin, closes his eyes, and turns from Victor to arc across the ice.

The arabesque is Minako’s hand on his elbow and knee, showing him how to make each movement graceful and soft, a dancer, a swan. The double axel he mastered with hard work when he was a child, Yuko’s voice ringing out in a cheer and praise, and the pride it brought him the first time he landed it without bobbling. The quad is just a Salchow, the first jump they teach to children, but with the full power of long, lean muscle gained through hard work and determination behind it. Check the turn, spring off from blade rather than pick, tuck the arms for height and speed...

Victor is clapping when Yuri comes back to the moment, and this time when Yuri joins him at center ice, Victor twines his arms around his waist, leaving Yuri to loop his arms around Victor in turn, tucking his head down into his shoulder to avoid Victor’s grin as he bites out one of the questions that haunted him. He needs to know, or the next question makes little difference. His voice is muffled by his arm, by Victor’s shoulder.

“Were you going to leave, if I didn't make the podium…?” Is he just waiting for Yuri to lose?

It’s clear the choice of question surprises him. Victor’s arms tighten around Yuri’s waist, taking them from a dance to a hug, cheek resting against Yuri’s temple as he shakes his head. He answers simply, honestly, and without excusing himself. “Nyet. I was trying to motivate you. I would not leave you.”

Yuri lets Victor brace his weight, holding them both up as he slumps in relief, and for a moment Victor allows it. But only a moment. Loosening his arms, he puts some space between them, fingertips touching Yuri’s chin to gently raise his head, capturing his stare.

“Last jump. This time, if you must ask, then _ask_.”

Victor doesn’t wait for his reply, and Yuri is thankful for that. They both know what the question will be, but this gives him the time to find the words. Moreso for the fact that after Victor pushes Yuri towards the wall and skates away, arcing across the rink to find his placement. Yuri realizes what’s happening from the first step.

This is _Yuri on Ice,_ the finale of the routine he just performed. This is Victor flipping a lifelong script on him and mimicking _Yuri’s_ every move. The music has faded to silence, but Yuri can imagine the build, the quick steps representing his future rushing towards him, hopeful and joyful at last as he comes to understand love. There’s a unique intimacy to this, to Victor tracing his footsteps, knowing what it _means_ to him. When Victor throws himself into the jump, it is the quad flip that Yuri incorporated to honor him, Victor’s signature move to represent the highest point in Yuri’s life on the ice, the culmination of his future hopes, the finale of his understanding of love.

 _That_ is the answer to any questions Victor may have had. _That_ was why Victor had brushed aside their months of dancing around each other, and kissed him in front of the world. Perhaps he misread Yuri declaring his meaning for _eros_ in front of the press conference cameras, but there was no misunderstanding Yuri pouring his heart out on the ice.

Victor doesn’t need to ‘ _ask_.’

When Victor finishes the final spin, beckoning Yuri to match him, Yuri rises to it. The steps are muscle memory, _his_ strength since long before Victor came to him. This dance across the ice is a whirlwind as the last few months have been. It’s not about mechanics... he doesn’t visualize this routine as rocker, counter, twizzles, brackets... this is a feeling played out as dance, from the confused exhilaration of finding Victor waiting in the hot springs for him, to the seed of doubt Yurio’s arrival fed. The blade of his skate, throwing up ice shavings, is the sharp possessive edge he found in himself, the in-place twirl of his body, arms outstretched as if he’s flying, is the elation of proving himself in front of his idol. His arms shape the wonder of Victor himself becoming more real to him than the pages of the magazines he’d gathered over the years, the faults and charms of a human being as vulnerable in his way as Yuri. His dance shows how admiration and a lingering crush from adolescence blossomed into far more, the desperate need to prove to Victor that he _can_ become everything he ever hoped, and more.

His vaunted stamina is fading now, sweat stinging his eyes, an ache settling deep in his muscles, new marks to join the mottled patina painted along the bruised skin of his feet and ankles… it makes him long for the hot springs, for a soft mattress, for a week of sleep and pork cutlet bowls. He can’t think of that now, though he wants all of those things for his future, thoughts of sharing that with Victor coloring his steps. This performance has never mattered more than it does now with this audience of one.

A quad toe loop never fit here. It was a nod to the technical aspect of the performance, a jarring take-away from the story he is telling for the sake of the points it granted. The _only_ jump that fits is the one that puts Victor front and center of Yuri’s future. If he is honoring Victor with this, it _has_ to be absolutely perfect to represent the ideal of him. For all of Yuri’s faults and failings, this time he _will not fall_.

Back inside edge. Toe pick. Vault. Tuck. Rotation. Back outside edge.

Victor is still enthusiastically cheering the landing when Yuri skips the spin and the final yearning reach towards the Russian waiting for him. There is no one else here, and nothing keeping him back now. Yuri’s body weight crashes into him, muscles weak from the herculean task of finishing out this day, but there’s nothing timid to him now. His hand is demanding, fingers curled around the back of Victor’s neck to hold him in place for a kiss, to tilt him to the angle he needs to slot them together perfectly. Waiting for Yuri to stumble over his words, to ask what the kiss _meant_ for them, to ask what they are to each other, Victor wasn’t prepared for Yuri showing him what he _wants_ for it to mean.

He’s thought about this for so many years, fantasized what he would do, an idea that was doomed to live in dreams that he tucked away as an embarrassment every time he woke. Even in his daydreams, Victor was--as he has been so far--usually the one to initiate it. But now Victor has spent months coaxing and teasing this out of him, the _eros_ to couple with the _agape,_ and with their third kiss Yuri is determined to show him. Tenderness and desire, with none of the hesitation of before, the soft breath of Victor’s approval an invitation that Yuri lets himself take, tasting and testing.

Victor huffs a laugh, lips shaping into a grin against Yuri’s, eyes still closed as he curls his arms around Yuri to keep him there and to brace him upright, supported by his embrace. “I’ve been telling you kisses are excellent motivation. Better than pork cutlet bowls.”

Yuri doesn’t bother responding, trying to kiss Victor silent, their third kiss flowing into a fourth that ends with Yuri dizzy from breathlessness still, hand keeping Victor tugged down to his level, foreheads pressed together. “Kisses and dares. I have your number finally, Katsuki Yuri.” There’s joy in Victor’s words, and a promise.

“You still owe me a victory meal.” Yuri’s reply sounds grumbled, but it does nothing to dim Victor’s spirits, nor Yuri’s, truly. Lifting his head, he meets Victor’s fond grin, letting himself be drawn into smiling in return.

“First you need a victory _shower_. I’m going to miss the hot springs on travel. Come on, let’s get you off the ice. Only a madman skates at three in the morning...”

They may still need to talk about it, once competitions don’t demand every moment of their time. But for now they both know where they stand, and what they hope the future will hold.

 


End file.
